No. 11.
REPORT OF THE COLONIAL SURGEON ON HIS INSPECTION OF THE TOWN OF VICTORIA,1 AND ON THE PIG LICENSING SYSTEM. HONGKONG, APRIL 1874.
COLONIAL SURGEON, DR. AYRES, TO HON. J. G. AUSTIN, COLONIAL SECRETARY.
HONGKONG, 15th April, 1874.
SIR,
I have the honour to forward to you a report on the result of my rounds with the Sanitary Inspectors, for the information of His Excellency the Governor.
As I have already stated in my reports on the inspection of brothels, there are many things brought to notice there that are equally applicable to private houses, such as bad drainage, deficient ventilation, foul privies, filthy condition of houses, &c., &c.; but if I was astonished at the state of the brothels, they did not at all prepare me for what I was to find in private houses.
As was the case with the brothels before I came, so it is with the back slums of the town; little or no superintendence has been thought of over the Inspectors. The Inspectors of Brothels, the Sanitary and Market Inspectors, have all been left pretty much to their own devices, as I have shown and shall show, nor does it seem to have come within the province of my predecessors to do this work.
Pigs are universally kept in the houses all over the town, the usual place for their reception being the kitchens, but they are by no means confined to that part of the house; if the droves are too large or the kitchens too small, they are kept in the same rooms the inhabitants of the house occupy, and are as frequently to be found in upper stories as on the ground floors; a very favourite place for them is under the bed. I have seen four of the usual divisions the Chinese make in one room, each division having a bed, and underneath each bed a pig-sty, containing from five to seven pigs, the occupant of the house having a Government Licence to keep pigs, and having no other place to keep them in. Attached to this report I send eight Licences,* by the authority of which the occupants of the houses kept pigs under their beds, and two others where the pigs, though not kept under the beds, were in the same room the people slept and lived in.
I could send many others.
No. 130.
A
*SPECIMENS OF LICENCES ENCLOSED.
NOT TRANSFERABLE. C. C. Smith1. This licence is only issued for the number of Pigs stated on it.
2. If any more than that number are kept, all the Pigs will be confiscated.
3. If the Pig-styes are not kept clean, the holders of the License will be fined, and the Licence will be cancelled.
4. If any Pigs are found in a house the owner of which has no Licence for keeping them, the Pigs will be confiscated, and the owner fined.
NOT TRANSFERABLE. REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE, VICTORIA. HONGKONG, 187 is licensed to keep stated on it. until further notice. Registrar General, 3. If the Pig-styes, or other places where the animals are kept, are not clean, the holders of the Licence will be fined, and the License will be cancelled. 3. If any Pigs, or other animals injurious to the public health, are found in a house the owner of which has no Licence for keeping them, the animals will be confiscated, and the owner fined." Miller 449The construction of this class of houses is against every sanitary rule as regards drainage, ventilation and cleanliness, which is rendered impossible to the inhabitants, which you will easily understand by what I shall show you. Many houses, being built back to back, have no yards; having only windows in front, there is nothing to promote a current of air through them. In others which are not built back to back, no yard is provided, but a narrow gully exists between the backs of the two sets of houses, about a yard wide, not used for passengers, but down which an open sewer exists, in which foul and fetid matter lies in pools, or slowly trickles from one pool to another, a slight descent assisting. The private drains existing are of the most complicated description, beginning in the kitchen of the house, and terminating goodness only knows where,—in but too many cases in the earth itself (with no outlet), through which the filth percolates till it finds the water level.
The upper floors of the houses are made with very thin boards, which, not lying close together, render it impossible to attempt to wash them, as that would result in giving the inhabitants of the rooms below a dirty shower bath. The ground floors are, for the most part, mud, though sometimes badly tiled or covered with stone; on this mud floor, every imaginable filth falls, from saliva to the pigs' urine draining from the pens, so that the earth is saturated with decomposing animal and vegetable matter of all descriptions, and the floor cannot be washed or cleaned.
I don't think the value of this sort of property is known, or the enormous prices for which these houses let. Repairs cost little or nothing yearly. In nearly every room three or more families reside, up to as many as six or eight; the rooms being partitioned off, each partition pays a dollar and a half to two dollars a month rent, and a house with three rooms about fourteen feet square, with miserable little kitchens attached, will fetch from £55 to £70 a year; if it is a brothel, from £80 to £100 a year. I saw one room with four partitions, for which the woman of the house paid $16 a month rent, the girls paying her $9 a month for each partition. So that it is evident, it is better to own property of this description, which requires little or no repair, than to own houses in better quarters, which pay less rent and require frequent repair. I mean that the inhabitants have no choice in the one instance, and the landlord none in the other, as to whether repairs shall be done or not, when they are required.
I now proceed to give a few notes of things I saw in certain localities, which notes are applicable to many other places.
Fuk On Lane.--Ground floors of most houses are mud; upper floors, open spaces between the boards, so that neither floors admit of proper cleaning; kitchens, poky little holes, overcrowded, and occupied by pigs. Steps at the upper end of this house were out of repair, underneath which are cavities containing liquid black and putrid filth.
Open space below Hospital Road, and east of Tung Hing Theatre, used as a place to shoot all sorts of rubbish, and a disgusting stench pervading the place.
Pound Lane.--South end filthy; no drainage; four cases of small-pox occurred here this year. Houses with broken floors, containing puddles of filth, from which a stench arose enough to make any one sick; outside, standing pools of filth in open drains. Tanks sunk in the ground floors of these houses containing filthy water, in which vegetables were being washed for the markets; also cake-making going on in these rooms, for sale in the markets; as many as from seven to twelve pigs kept in the kitchens here, the people having Licences.
Rutter's Lane consists of a passage about four feet wide, paved with large stones, with large cavities beneath them into which I could poke my walking-stick up to the handle without finding bottom, these cavities containing black and putrid liquid filth. The houses horribly filthy, and having pigs in them; in one house three children just recovered from small-pox.
At the top of this Lane is an open space, in which all sorts of rubbish are shot. Four wells in this space, which all, more or less, receive the drainings from the rubbish collected about. From three of these wells, the water only being used for cleaning clothes and vegetables, and the fourth used for drinking. Downspouts of the houses generally in a bad state of repair, and badly made.
Along the back of the houses in Upper Station Street runs a horizontal wooden trough, about six feet above the ground, which is used for conveying refuse water from the houses; this is not in good repair...
No. 11.
REPORT OF THE COLONIAL SURGEON ON HIS INSPECTION OF THE TOWN OF VICTORIA, 1
AND ON THE PIG LICENSING SYSTEM. HONGKONG, APRIL 1874.
COLONIAL SURGEON, DR. AYRES, TO HON, J. G. AUSTIN, COLONIAL SECRETARY.
HONGKONG, 15th April, 1874. SIR,I have the honour to forward to you a report on the result of my rounds with the Sanitary Inspectors, for the information of His Excellency the Governor.
As I have already stated in my reports on the inspection of brothels, there are many things brought to 'notice there that are equally applicable to private houses, such as bad drainage, deficien ventilation, foul privies, filthy condition of houses, &c., &c.; but if I was astonished at the state of the brothels, they did not at all prepare me for what I was to find in private houses.
As was the case with the brothels before I came, so it is with the back slums of the town; little or no superintendence has been thought of over the Inspectors. The Inspectors of Brothels, the Sanitary and Market In- spectors, have all been left pretty much to their own devices, as I have shown and shall show, nor does it seem to have come within the province of my predecessors to do this work.
Pigs are universally kept in the houses all over the town, the usual place for their reception being the kitchens, but they are by no means confined to that part of the house; if the droves are too large or the kitchens too small, they are kept in the same rooms the inhabitants of the house occupy, and am as frequently to be found in upper stories as on the ground floors; a very favourite place for them is under the bed. I have seen four of the usual divisions the Chinese make in one room, each division having a bed, and underneath each bed a pig-sty, containing from five to seven pigs, the occupant of the house having a Government Licence to keep pigs, and having no other place to keep them in. Attached to this report I send eight Licences,* by the authority of which the occupants of] the houses kept pigs under their beds, and two others where the pigs, though not kept under the beds, were in the same room the people slept and lived in.
I could send many others.
No. 130.
A
*SPECIMENS OF LICENCES ENCLOSED.
NOT TRANSFERABLE.
This is at inseca. rate statemen
C. C. Smith Reglatrava e
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE, VICTORIA, HONGKONG, 5th January, 1872.
WONG A-FUNG is licensed to keep Three Pigs, on her Premises No. 4. Cross Street, till further notice.
No, 74.
No.
at
NOT TRANSFERABLE.
CECIL C. SMITH.
Registrar teneral.
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE, VICTORIA, HONGKONG, 8th September, 1571.
LI A-LAI is licensed to keep Four Pigs, (4) on her Premises No. 7, Hing Wan Lane, 15th June, 1875, till further notice.
CECIL C. SMITH,
Registrar Generai.
1. This licence is only issued for the number of Pigs stated on it.
2. If any more than that number are kept, all the Pigs will be confiscated.
3. If the Pig-styes are not kept clean, the holders of the License will be fined, and the Licence will be cancelled.
4. If any Pigs are found in a house the owner of which has no Licence for keeping them, the Pigs will be confiscated, and the owner fined.
1. This License is only issued for the number of
NOT TRANSFERABLE,
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE, VICTORIA. HONGKONG,
187
is licensed to keep.
stated on it.
until further notice.
Registrar General,
3. If the Pig-styes, or other places where the animals are kept, are not clean, the holders of the Licence will be fined, and the License wil be cancelled.
3. If any Pigs, or other animals injurions to the public health, are found in a house the owner of which has no Licence for keeping thent. the animals will be confiscated, and the owner fine."
Miller
449
The construction of this class of houses is against every sanitary rule as regards drainage, ventila- tion and cleanliness, which is rendered impossible to the inhabitants, which you will easily under- stand by what I shall show you. Many houses, being built back to back, have no yards; having only In others which are windows in front, there is nothing to promote a current of air through them. not built back to back, no yard is provided, but a narrow gully exists between the backs of the two sets of houses, about a yard wide, not used for passengers, but down which an open sewer exists, in which foul and fetid matter lies in pools, or slowly trickles from one pool to another, a slight descent assisting. The private drains existing are of the most complicated description, beginning in the kitchen of the house, and terminating goodness only knows where,--in but too many cases in the earth itself (with no outlet), through which the filth percolates till it finds the water level.
The upper
floors of the houses are made with very thin boards, which, not lying close together, render it impossible to attempt to wash them, as that would result in giving the inhabitants of the rooins below a dirty shower bath. The ground floors are, for the most part, mud, though sometimes badly tiled or covered with stone; on this mud floor, every imaginable filth falls, from saliva to the pigs' urine draining from the pens, so that the earth is saturated with decomposing animal and vege- table matter of all descriptions, and the floor cannot be washed or cleaned.
I don't think the value of this sort of property is known, or the enormous prices for which these houses let. Repairs cost little or nothing yearly. In nearly every room three or more families reside, up to as many as six or eight; the rooms being partitioned off, each partition pays a dollar and a half to two dollars a month rent, and a house with three rooms about fourteen feet square, with miserable little kitchens attached, will fetch from £55 to £70 a year; if it is a brothel, from £80 to £100 a year. I saw one room with four partitions, for which the woman of the house paid $16 a month rent, the girls paying her $9 a month for each partition. So that it is evident, it is better to own property of this description, which requires little or no repair, than to own houses in better quarters, which pay less rent and require frequent repair. I mean that the inhabitants have no choice in the one instance, and the landlord none in the other, as to whether repairs shall be done or not, when they are required. I now proceed to give a few notes of things I saw in certain localities, which notes are applicable to many other places.
Fuk On Lane.--Ground floors of most houses are mud; upper floors, open spaces between the boards, so that neither floors admit of proper chimney; kitchens, poky little holes, overcrowded, and occupied by pigs. Steps at the upper end of this house were out of repair, underneath which are cavities containing liquid black and putrid filth.
Open space below Hospital Road, and east of Tung Hing Theatre, used as a place to shoot all sorts of rubbish, and a disgusting stench pervading the place.
Pound Lane.-South end filthy; no drainage; four cases of small-pox occurred here this year. Houses with broken floors, containing puddles of filth, from which a stench arose enough to make any one sick; outside, standing pools of filth in open drains. Tanks sunk in the ground floors of these houses containing filthy water, in which vegetables were being washed for the markets; also cake- making going on in these rooms, for sale in the markets; as many as from seven to twelve pigs kept in the kitchens here, the people having Licences.
Rutter's Laue consists of a passage about four feet wide, paved with large stones, with large cavities beneath them into which I could poke my walking-stick up to the handle without finding bottom, these cavities containing black and putrid liquid filth. The houses horribly filthy, and having pigs in them; in one house three children just recovered from small-pox.
At the top of this Lane is an open space, in which all sorts of rubbish are shot. Four wells in this space, which all, more or less, receive the drainings from the rubbish collected about. From three of these wells, the water only being used for cleaning clothes and vegetables, and the fourth used for drinking. Downspouts of the houses generally in a bad state of repair, and badly made.
Along the back of the houses in Upper Station Street runs a horizontal wooden trough, about six feet above the ground, which is used for conveying refuse water from the houses; this is not in good
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